Makes Me End Where I Begun
by V.M. Bell
Summary: She knows it is going to be a particularly awful birthday when she walks into the Great Hall to find that boy jogging towards her.  Lily & James.


**Makes Me End Where I Begun**

She knows it is going to be a particularly awful birthday when she walks into the Great Hall to find _that_ boy jogging towards her.

Breakfast is suddenly very unimportant to her.

As she turns around and leaves, muttering to herself about a Potions essay due in one week's time, a chorus of laughter rises up from the Gryffindor table. She can so clearly imagine how the entire scene played out: James and his friends at breakfast, and he would have told them all to stay on the lookout for her. Others would have their heads pivoted towards the Great Hall's entrance, wondering if Hogwarts's most popular student would at last, on this morning, prove victorious. Perhaps it was Sirius who alerted James as to her presence, Sirius who nudged him in the arm, and James, previously sullen looking, would have pushed his breakfast away and jumped to his feet, his gaze magically attracted to the light of his life: Lily Evans, student extraordinaire and stunning redhead.

The boy's been infatuated with her for years now, she thinks as soon as she is safely ensconced in the library. Clearly, he was born without a certain something -- a certain something that tells saner folk when to give up.

-

The Potions essay is not due in one week's time. It is due today.

"Oh, damn it," she swears softly as she rifles through her bag. "Sorry, Professor, I don't have it."

A Slytherin girl behind her emits what is, in all likelihood, an exaggerated gasp. From across the room, she sees James raise his eyebrows. She looks away.

"Ah, Miss Evans, not to worry. The occasional mental lapse is excusable, even for my most intelligent students." He winks at her. "Oh, and today is your birthday, isn't it? A very good reason to be distracted from Potions, no doubt. Turn it in tomorrow, and no points will be deducted."

"Thank you," she mumbles.

As soon as Professor Slughorn moves onto the next student, Lily scowls and rests her forehead against the desk.

-

Her stomach is grumbling now, but she reckons that her Potions assignment is far more important than lunch. Though the use and brewing of Love Potions are banned at Hogwarts, it is apparently necessary that N.E.W.T. students be tested on the subject. As Lily settles into the library for the second time that day, she realizes that her knowledge of Love Potions amounts to approximately nothing.

She allows herself to stare at the ceiling for a few seconds, cursing herself for being stupid enough to forget a due date, before embarking on a search for all relevant books.

It is only when she pulls out _The Theory and Application of Amortentia_ that she notices someone standing a few paces behind her.

James appears fascinated by the ceiling tiles.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she asks.

"Oh, hello, Lily." He flashes a disarming smile in her direction as she crosses her arms. "So, doing some extra research about Love Potions?"

"You know, I think I liked you better when you still called me Evans."

"If you had told me earlier, _Evans_, you would have saved me the trouble of learning your first name."

Feeling her mouth twitch for a moment, she wills her face to remain expressionless. "I am not amused, James."

"Look, if you need any help with that essay -- "

"You forget sometimes, James," she says, giving him a smile of her own, "that you're not the only competent student in Potions?"

Tucking the Amortentia volume under her arm, she motions to walk away, but he places a hand on her shoulder. Lily should not have paused, but too late now: she is already stopped, and James Potter, prankster extraordinaire and (she throws up her proverbial arms as she silently admits this to herself) veritably gorgeous male specimen, is but a breath away.

"Then at least eat something." He slides a pastry into her hands. "You look like you're going to faint."

-

With a yellowed text balanced on her knees and hidden beneath her desk, Lily has never before appreciated the complexity of Love Potions until now. Though their overriding purpose -- to imitate love by creating in the drinker an all-encompassing obsession -- is the same, their minutiae differ immensely. Their ingredients and their colors, their scents and their antidotes --Lily shut her eyes, her despair increasing by the minute. The prospect of interweaving all of this information into a unified essay…why, dating James Potter would be easier.

"Miss Evans." Professor McGonagall's voice cracks through her reverie. Lily looks up at her disapproving glance. Very quietly, she closes the book and returns it to her bag. "In the future, I would appreciate it if Transfiguration is the only subject you study in my class."

Lily nods sheepishly as the professor continues her lecture about human transfiguration, trying to remember the last time she was lectured about being inattentive during class. What a birthday this was.

-

"I really cannot bring myself to believe that you are actually working on that essay."

After clutching a quill for hours, her fingers ache, and her hands are smeared with ink, but the essay is, at most, only half completed. She searches for a clock, but she cannot discern the time through the blur in her eyes. "James, your bothering me is not going to aid my cause at all, I can promise you that. What time is it?"

"Ten past nine."  
"Merlin, I've been here since -- "

" -- since you finished dinner, and you ate dinner faster than anyone I've ever seen."

Lily sets her quill and essay aside. James is sitting across from her, his hands folded and resting on the table, an absentminded grin playing with his mouth. "Do I want to know why you notice these things?"

"You already know the answer."

James is looking at her now in a way that makes her blush. "Right, so, how long did this essay take you?"

"An hour or so." He shrugs.

She blinks. "I don't believe you."

"Well, what can I say, Evans? Sirius and I are brilliant."

"You _cheated_ on your essay?"

"Semantics, dear. We do not cheat -- we cooperate in our efforts to achieve something that could not be done by one of us alone."

Lily makes a sound of disgust, picking up her quill. "Honestly, I don't know why I bother talking to you."

"Yet, here you are, talking to me. Funny how that works, no?"

"Look, I need to give this essay to Professor Slughorn tomorrow. I simply don't have any _time_ right now to bother with you -- "

"Evans, you bloody well know that Slughorn would give you full points for it if you turned in a blank roll of parchment -- "

"Nonetheless." She returns her quill to an unfinished paragraph. When she next speaks, her voice has taken on a far lighter tone. "Besides, I thought you were going to call me Lily."

James stands up and offers his hand. Smiling somewhat, she takes it; what she does not expect is the brief brush of his lips against the back of her own hand -- an utterly gentlemanly thing to do and the paragon of everything James is not. "My deepest apologies if I have offended you in any manner, Lily."

Lily frees her hand and hides it behind her back. "In that case, you have many apologies to make."

"I'll work on those and leave you to your essay, then?"

She watches him walk (perhaps _strut_ is a better term) to the library doors, perfectly oblivious of some giggling, oogling third-years, and follows his figure as it strolls down the hallway and out of sight.

-

The fire in the Gryffindor common room is almost dead when, tired but pleased, she crawls through the portrait hole. The essay is finished now, and she promises herself that she will only read through it once -- once, and no more. Then, she thinks, yawning, it will be time to sleep and put an end to what has been one of the least enjoyable, most stressful birthdays in recent memory.

As she spreads her things out on a table, however, she notices an errant, crumpled sheet of parchment. Frowning, she reaches for it and unfolds it. Perhaps it is someone's failed attempt at a homework assignment, or more likely, perhaps it was used to target a fellow student's head.

What Lily does not expect is a letter addressed to her.

_Dear __Evans__Lily__ Lily Evans (happy?),_

Here are my apologies: 

_I'm sorry that I pulled your pigtails in first year. I know that girls hate it when we do that, but I think I wanted you to hate me, at least a little. __Even when you were eleven years old, I thought you were awfully cute.__ I'm sorry for laughing at those Muggle things you would bring from home. They looked a little funny to my wizarding eyes. I'm sorry for looking at your Charms exam in fourth year. Actually, I wasn't really looking at your exam -- I was looking at your eyes, although I doubt Flitwick would have believed me if I had told him that. He gave me detention anyway, so you'll be happy to hear that I was duly punished. I'm sorry for making a fool out of you -- out of both of us -- every time I asked you out. I'm sorry for being a bit stupid all of these years. If I passed it off as the typical behavior of an adolescent male, would you forgive me? Probably not._

Mostly, I'm sorry your birthday, your last one at Hogwarts, wasn't a very good day. I'm sorry if I made it worst by trying to talk to you all day. Maybe I should have left you alone. Last year, or the year (years?) before that, I would have just blurted it out during breakfast, then laughed as you said no for the thousandth time, when really, I wanted you to say yes. But I'm a little older now than I used to be, and I might even be a bit more mature. I swear that I wasn't going to ask you out this morning. I only wanted to wish you a happy birthday, but when you walked away -- well, happy birthday, Lily.

_And let it be known that I still want you to say yes, but only if __you__ want to. I'll understand if you don't: I've become quite accustomed to that by now._

_(Hogsmeade weekend next week. Interested in a drink at the Three Broomsticks?)_

_Love__Sincerely__ Oh sod it, James_

-

When Lily at last turns in for the night, far past her customary bedtime, she makes sure to leave her own scrap of parchment, charmed to remain stuck to the common room table for three days' time.

It reads, quite simply, _yes_.


End file.
